Seems like they dropped an entire box of balls - AC, Seats, Space, Pana roof, heated rear/ventilated seats, smartphone integration, reverse tilt mirrors, around view monitor
AC is not like the old model but eventually the interior is cool. Maybe this is a real issue for someone driving in real hot temp location. I tinted my windows to the max and now is better.
The space feels less than previous model (I know it, I had the CX9 v6 for 6 years) but this is due to isolation material and extra wide doors.
The Panoramic roof is a big hole on the roof, and is not a good idea to put a 100kg crystal in the heads of family. This is a security issue in a case of rollover. There is a youtube video from Mazda I see weeks ago explaining why the prefer to sacrifice the beauty of a sunroof vs security. I actually have panoramic sunroof in my wife Nissan Rogue and barely use it.
Regarding the around view: We have it in the Nissan Rogue and is very cool! This is standard in Infiniti and is now available on Rogue and Pathfinder. But the video quality in the screen is lower compared with the current cx9 video quality, it's just so much clear!. Maybe our rogue requires lens cleaning, I don't know!
Smartphone integration (ACP and AA) will be very, very nice to have. I really need smartphone mirroring!. I hope Mazda allow us to have it via firmware update. The info entertainment system is very powerful with Gracenote music recognition (??), Microsoft engine (??), Nuance voice recognition, Opera browser engine (??=, Aviage Acoustic processing (??) and even a SQLite database! Lot of technology and power but we need better integration with phones.
heated back seat and ventilated seats needs to be added to future versions and central air control. It's amazing they lost this basic feature available even in cheap small cars.
But the new CX9 outperform in a lot of aspects. When you see the interior of the most high trim of Pilot (in MX) and the most high trim of current cx9 (GT), the materials and detail difference it's incredible.